The yield gap has arisen again as a focus for agricultural research to ensure food security and economic growth for farmers around the world. To examine this renewed interest, we carried out a review of key literature in the field of yield gap analysis to identify important gaps in research and analysis. In so doing, both the complexities in yield gap studies emerged along with some significant omissions. Much of the literature and research on the yield gap has been framed by larger concerns and initiatives to raise agricultural productivity.

This report presents findings from a village baseline study conducted in Rohal Suong village in Cambodia. Findings have been gathered from focus group discussions and participatory resource mapping with community members in Rohal Suong. The site analysis is part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS) Baseline Survey work and provides information on community resources, the organizational landscape, and information networks at the village level.

Benefit-Sharing Mechanisms (BSMs) work to redistribute the benefits of a healthy watershed equitably to everyone and to create a virtuous circle between the welfare of people and the ecosystems they live in.

Accountability and adaptive management of recent global agreements such as the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate Agreement, will in part rely on the ability to track progress toward the social and environmental targets they set. Current metrics and monitoring systems, however, are not yet up to the task. We argue that there is an imperative to consider principles of coherence (what to measure), standardization (how to measure) and decision-relevance (why to measure) when designing monitoring schemes if they are to be practical and useful.

A sustainable food future will require reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture even as the world produces substantially more food. The production of rice, the staple crop for the majority of the world’s population, emits large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. According to various governments, global rice production emits 500 million tons of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide equivalent) per year—or at least 10 percent of total agricultural emissions.

In the not so long history of humankind, our ancestors too often fought for land and water. Those days have returned.